


In Celebration: Drabbles inspired by the Old Rite.

by chaosgirl93



Category: Original Work
Genre: Catholic, Gen, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, I Tried, Improper Use of Catholic Rituals, Inaccurate Catholicism, POV First Person, Roman Catholicism, Traditionalism is Dangerous, Traditions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 06:55:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21424027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaosgirl93/pseuds/chaosgirl93
Summary: A variety of first-person one-shot exaggerations of Traditional Catholic life, intended as a humorous tribute to tradition, the TLM, and the old Catholic life.
Kudos: 1





	1. Once Lost, Now Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short drabble, first person perspective. An exaggeration of a common first experience of Traditional Catholicism, written in honor to the TLM and in retaliation for the National Catholic Distorter's piece on TLM by Zita Skeeter.

Yes, that’s me and my mom dressed like 1950s Catholic schoolgirls in the backseat of my dad’s truck. Yes, we got ice cream. And yes, that’s my mom looking like she can’t remember what year it is or her own age. You’re probably wondering how I got into this situation. 

Well, it all started when Mom called a family meeting and set forth a family religious exploration project, in which we would visit churches and services of all different faiths in the hopes of finding something we could go back to regularly. Everyone would get a turn to add something to the list, and a turn assigned to do the research and make arrangements for a thing chosen by someone else. This style of rotating assignment was chosen to prevent us winding up at a cult meeting by making sure whoever chose which faith to explore didn’t get to track down the service. 

Our first exploration was a Catholic mass, which Mom put on the list, and I was assigned to find a parish and make arrangements, simply telling Mom what she needed to do and when. Neither of us wanted to go, but she felt she had to, and told me a story of tradition and duty, ending with a story about the time a friend took her to a church which performed the old Latin Mass. She said “It was beautiful. I felt God in church again. Then I was angry they stole that beautiful rite from us. But that was thirty years ago, they no longer do that anywhere after all these years, and I’m over it.” 

I knew I had to find her one more chance to see the old rite. I’d barely even heard of the old rite myself, so I had to do some research on what it was and how we should behave. Thankfully, there was nothing I’d have to warn her about, especially since she’d been once before and remembered it. Everything I found was from a “Catholics used to...at the old mass, but that is now abrogated, and can’t be found in any average parish anymore” approach, so I thought the old rite might be lost. But I found some people talking about the old rite as something they attended just the prior week, so I knew traditionalists could still get it somewhere. Eventually, after hours of fruitless research, I just asked someone where they still found the old rite. I was then given a link to a handy little directory that lists every old rite parish in the world, by country, then by region, then by city. I knew where to find the old rite in less than ten minutes on the directory. I then asked if we had to call ahead. I was told we just had to show up. 

So I told my dad, and got him to agree to drive us there, drive us home, and stop to get ice cream on the way home, because when Mom was a kid going to mass with her grandparents, she and her brother got ice cream after if they were well behaved. Mom tends to be intensely affected by ritual so I thought she’d better not have to drive us home after mass, and I thought if the goal is to show her what she missed out on as a kid growing up in the Novus Ordo, and Dad’s driving us home anyway, may as well do something that was part of the experience for her growing up. Then I told Mom I’d found the parish and gotten us a ride from a family member so she wouldn’t have to drive tired in the morning, and I told her to meet us at the door, dressed for church and fed, at 11 am. The service was at 12:30, the church was about 45 minutes from our house, and I wanted to be there early just in case. 

Then came Sunday morning. At 10:30 am, I came upstairs to fix breakfast, dressed in my best pinafore and a puffy sleeved blouse, and found Mom also dressed like a little girl, but it was tasteful, and she had a scarf to cover her head, so I said nothing. After I had my bagel, Dad came downstairs, and we all went outside. Mom and I got into the backseat of Dad’s truck, I gave him the address I’d written down earlier, and he drove us to the church. He dropped us off out front, and I took Mom’s hand and walked her into the church, where we sat at the back. 

We were early, and not long after we sat down the processional hymn began. I helped Mom find it in the hymnal, and we sang along. I had almost forgotten anything extraordinary was happening, until the mass began. I kept an eye on Mom’s reaction, careful to make sure I would be aware if we had to leave because of her. She seemed to notice the altar was set up ad orientem, but dismiss it as conservatism. When the prayers and chanting began, she looked confused, but then seemed to settle into a childlike acceptance and curiosity. I didn’t notice anything else from her because I was caught up in the ritual. As the recessional hymn was sung, I looked back over at her, and in that moment she didn’t look like my mother. She looked so at peace, and a tear rolled down her cheek. The childish dress combined with the look on her face and the thin lacy scarf made her look no older than a teenage girl, and I’m certain that she looked younger than me. I quietly took her hand and led her out of the church, and once we got out front we waited about a minute before Dad pulled up. I opened the door and helped Mom up, then got into the backseat beside her. 

As we pulled away from the church and we put our scarves away, Dad asked if we enjoyed it. Mom said through tears “No wonder people stopped going to church in the seventies, if that’s what we lost.” I said, by way of explanation, “It was intense.” Dad asked if we’d been good girls. I said “Not a peep out of either of us. No freakouts occurred, if you’re worried.” Dad said “Interesting. I thought for sure a religious ceremony all in Latin would make you both have panic attacks.” So I told him “I go to Catholic school. That trigger had to go pretty young. You know this.” Then Dad turned to Mom, and said “There’s no hurry to get home, and the ice cream parlor is on our way. You two want a treat for sitting through that?” Mom said “Ohh, we did that when I was a kid! Yeah, let’s get ice cream!” 

So we got ice cream, and as we set off for home, eating our ice cream cones, Mom got this far away look, and said in this loopy voice I’ve only ever heard after she gets really into a ritual and while she’s coming back down from it, “W-what year is it…h-how old a-am I...w-where’s m-mom...” more as statements than questions. I put on my best little boy voice, thinking she’s dizzy from ritual as she often gets and she likely thinks she’s ten years old again so she’ll only listen to what sounds like her brother, and said “You’re fine. I’m fine. We went to church, then we got ice cream because we behaved. We’re going home now. Finish your ice cream before it melts all over you.” She seemed to come out of it a little, and finished her ice cream. 

The thing is, I don’t think that was a one time thing. You see, some people get addicted to coffee, chocolate, alcohol, cigarettes, weed, etc, but Mom, she gets addicted to rituals. She witnesses a ritual she enjoys, she has to be there every week. Which means we’re going to keep going. 

[They told me the old rite was dangerous.](https://i.redd.it/ys1wk4r0zey31.jpg) I’m glad I didn’t listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: This is a distortion and exaggeration. Boomers who grew up with the TLM do have similarly emotional come-back-to-tradition stories, but this was not based on those. I did take my mother to a TLM, and it was intense, but this did not actually happen this way. This type of response likely will not happen to ~99 percent of those who attend a TLM, that's why I tagged it Inaccurate Catholicism.


	2. Schoolroom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I attend Catholic school, and one thing on the demographics form is a question about sacraments undergone. My family were always "cultural Catholics" when I was little, so mine weren't done at the proper times, which we're now having to do something about at the parish where my family now attends TLM. Here's a scene that will undoubtedly take place in my classroom after that has occurred.

The bell rings. Everyone rushes out, and I stay behind. I approach the teacher's desk. "Ms. Blackheart, I need to ask a question about some paperwork." 

"Yes, Lucia?" 

"Some information on the demographics form has changed. Can we change it here, or do you need me to take another copy home and get it corrected and signed?" 

"What's changed?" 

"Sacramental information." 

"Ah, I see. You'll need to take home this details change form."

I take the form from her. "Thank you, though is this massive form really necessary?" 

"Yes. Protocol, you see." 

"I understand." 

When I arrive home, I give Mom the form. "Ms. Blackheart needs you to fill this out." 

"All that?" 

"That's what she said." 

"Feck it. I'm just going to email her and the admin." 

Mom always knows what to do.


	3. Latin Rite

Dad said that all practicing members of an organized religion under his roof must learn to speak their organization's liturgical language. As I'm Roman Catholic, I must learn Latin. My first instinct was to be angry, but I kept it together, and after he and Mom left for their monthly date night, I asked my sister what she thought. 

She told me to just go along with it, brought up Catholic tradition, the fact that I attend a TLM, and my childhood fascination with Ancient Rome, and said "Besides, dead languages are cool. How many people can say they speak a dead language because it's part of their religious tradition?" 

I thought about it for a while, and wrote this poem. 

Remember that you live in different worlds  
Every morning, choose to quietly assent  
Every day, remember who you chose to be  
Every evening, choose to say the prayers that haven't yet been said  
Learn to love the changes tradition brings


	4. Margaret's Memoir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First person POV. The story of a little girl who grew up in the last vestiges of tradition her distraught parents could find circa about 1977 in the aftermath of Vatican II, but slipped through the cracks after she grew up, until the resurgence of the old rite in the early 2000s, allowing this 30-something woman to find her faith again.

I remember a classical Catholic life, that was just normal when I grew up, but can’t be found anymore. I remember a world that was normal for me and the seven other kids, but I can’t mention it to my friends. They just cry, and I understand why. I miss it, and I actually got to be there. They never did. I was a little girl in the faith of our fathers, and now I’m a woman in the modern world who makes it to the new rite when I can get there.

I remember failing elementary school theology because I only know theological terms in Latin. I remember an incident at a school holiday mass when I was the only one on my knees. I remember Friday afternoons when Grandpa’s visit meant we couldn’t speak in the vernacular, except when he was stood on the porch smoking. 

And I remember our weekends. Saturday afternoons spent driving hours out to Mom’s sister’s cottage in the country. Sunday morning, when we woke up in the cramped cottage, put on our church clothes which we kept at the cottage, the girls would find our veils, and we’d go to mass at the little town parish, which was barely more than a converted barn. We went to the countryside cottage every weekend because the little country parish, just on the edge of the diocese, leaving it unnoticed by both bishops, was the only place in the state where you could go for the old Latin rite and real Catholicism, after the damned Council. After mass, we kids would change into play clothes and go into the yard out back while Mom washed the clothes and hung them to dry. 

At seven, Sunday dinner. At eight, night prayers. Fifteen whole decades of the rosary, and that was just to begin. If prayers didn’t take two hours, we did it wrong. And of course, we all prayed in Latin, and I know everyone understood, except maybe little Samantha, but she didn’t understand anything really. I can still do it. I still do. 

No one knew we went there for the old mass. We had a script to perform for friends and teachers. Officially, we went to our aunt’s cottage every weekend for some fresh air and to escape the city. If someone asked about mass and our Sunday obligation, we were to tell them we went to our aunt’s parish while at the cottage, and leave it at that. 

Eventually, when I was still a little girl, someone important took notice, and the parish was not shut down, but the building was allowed to fall into disrepair, and the priests were ordered to stop offering the old mass for the parishioners in that building. So they maliciously complied by offering a Novus Ordo, which no one but a couple old ladies attended, at the parish building, and then proceeded to offer the old rite later that day - on an old rock in a field. There were several old back fields with a rock, log, or stump that could serve as an altar out in the country, and they would do it in a different field each week to keep it hidden from modernists. They used a phone tree of all the cottages and farmhouses, and every week our aunt would tell Mom where we needed to go. 

We would enter the field at staggered times, the members of the congregation assigned as lookouts first. We’d all be assembled by the time the priest and his altar boys got there. We’d stand there in a field, watching the old rite happen on a rock, a log, sometimes decommissioned farming equipment. Those guys could use anything as an altar. 

That was reverence. That was power. That was being Catholic in the face of Protestant persecution. I remember the parish, but what I remember even more, is growing up Catholic in a secular world. A girlhood getting in trouble for being traditional, but keeping my head held high. Sunday mornings as a small girl kneeling before the mass rocks. 

I remember the old Latin mass as something the sedevacantists did in the fields, at the cottage in the countryside. I know the Mass Rocks not as an Irish relic from the Penal Laws, but as a symbol of Catholic tradition. I know the Mass Rocks not as something Catholics used centuries ago to preserve the faith of Patrick in Ireland, but as something we used when I was a child only decades ago to preserve the faith of our fathers in the American countryside.

Last week, a friend asked if I’d go with her to her church. I went. We sat down in the back, and I immediately noticed the altar was facing east and away from the people, like the one at the country parish all those years ago. She noticed I was staring, and whispered to me “We’re a bit more conservative here.” As the rite began, I didn’t know what to expect. What happened next was not something I had expected in any parish again after they shut down the country shack. I was sitting there in tears when it was over. Lucia had to take me by the hand and walk me home. As we left, she asked me why I was crying.

I told her the truth. “Lucia...The last time I saw a Tridentine rite, was at an old mass rock in the Brown wheat field in the countryside when I was fifteen. I remember the old Latin mass as something the traditionalists, the worst of us, did in secret in the back fields, running from the bishop. I had no idea you could still find one.”

She didn’t say much to me. “Margaret, I’m so sorry. I thought you just didn’t bother. I would have told you about this place when we were kids, if I’d known you didn’t know.” 

A long conversation and some tearful apologies and explanations later, we went to the parish office and I filled out the paperwork to leave the modernist parish I never went to and officially join up at St. Peter Catholic Church. After all these years, I had a piece of the old ways back. I think after I’m done here, I’ll call my aunt.


	5. You Ask Why

I grew up in a place where asking a theology question got you an answer in Latin and a lecture on tradition, if you were heard praying in the vernacular someone would hit you and anyone you asked for help would rule in your assailant's favor. Sitting through a TLM every morning, with a set of rosary beads used to bind our hands in prayer position, then taken home hands still bound, and forced to our knees before Mary to say all fifteen decades. If you complained it only got worse. You just had to get used to it. The prods would throw rocks at us while we were waiting for the school bus, and everyone would make fun of those who didn’t fight back. 

You know this was my world, and yet you don’t really understand. You still ask why I like the old ways, why I asked you to bind my hands for me that day, why I can’t feel right praying in the vernacular, and why I can’t stand the Novus Ordo. You still ask why it’s so difficult for me to have an open dialogue with a Protestant. 

I long ago was taught to love tradition, and to associate modernist and proddie nonsense with painful punishment. You never saw what I saw. You weren’t there. I doubt you’ll ever understand.


End file.
